Sensitivity to reinforcer duration in a self-control procedure

In a concurrent-chains procedure, pigeons' responses on left and right keys were followed by reinforcers of different durations at different delays following the choice responses. Three pairs of reinforcer delays were arranged in each session, and reinforcer durations were varied over conditions. In Experiment 1 reinforcer delays were unequal, and in Experiment 2 reinforcer delays were equal. In Experiment 1 preference reversal was demonstrated in that an immediate short reinforcer was chosen more frequently than a longer reinforcer delayed 6 s from the choice, whereas the longer reinforcer was chosen more frequently when delays to both reinforcers were lengthened. In both experiments, choice responding was more sensitive to variations in reinforcer duration at overall longer reinforcer delays than at overall shorter reinforcer delays, independently of whether fixed-interval or variable-interval schedules were arranged in the choice phase. We concluded that preference reversal results from a change in sensitivity of choice responding to ratios of reinforcer duration as the delays to both reinforcers are lengthened.     

Allocation of attention in familiar and unfamiliar traffic scenarios

Increased travel worldwide has led to an escalation of road traffic accidents, particularly among tourists driving in unfamiliar, opposite traffic flow driving scenarios. Ability to allocate attention to driving-relevant information and regions is predicted to be the main cause of tourist accidents, with a lack of attention directed to areas of space that are inhibited in familiar traffic conventions but relevant in overseas driving. This study investigated the influence of habit and expectancy on driver behaviour and allocation of attention in familiar (left-hand traffic; LHT) and unfamiliar (right-hand traffic; RHT) contexts. Twenty-eight drivers from the UK were presented with video clips of driving taken in the UK and in Poland and asked to judge whether it was safe to enter a roundabout in each clip. Half were given information about differences in LHT and RHT situations prior to the task. Judgement performance was not influenced by this information, however accuracy was higher for LHT and the RHT task was rated more difficult, supporting the notion that driving in unfamiliar surroundings is more effortful. In LHT both groups made more fixations to the right side of each roundabout, however in RHT, whilst the control group allocated attention in the same way, the intervention group made significantly more fixations to the left. Pre-drive preparatory information can therefore increase attention to the most relevant areas of space in unfamiliar driving contexts. This has implications for drive tourism and it is suggested that such information is made more explicit to drivers.     

Transforming habits of inattention to structural racial injustice in educational settings: A pedagogical framework that pays attention to the affective politics of habit

This paper draws together current scholarship regarding affect, habit and social change to suggest that attending to the affective dimension of habits in pedagogy and education develops a novel account that not only begins to explain why transforming habits of inattention to structural racial injustice proves particularly difficult in educational settings; this account can also offer new pedagogical openings for educators and students to engage more productively with the negative affective responses (e.g. denial, defensiveness, resentment) that often result from pedagogical efforts to disrupt these habits. Rather than seeing habits as conservative forces of routine and passive behavior, recent theorizing in affect theory and cultural geography pays attention to habits as affective and performative forces that influence the emergence of environment and can transform socio-spatial, affective, and material conditions. As such, the paper argues that a critical re-appraisal of the notion of habit in pedagogy and education, where the role of affect is central, can provide a fruitful terrain for understanding the ethical, material and affective complexities of transforming habits of inattention to structural racial injustice.     

Patterns of emotional availability between mothers and young children: Associations with risk factors for borderline personality disorder

Emotional availability (EA) characterizes a warm, close relationship between caregiver and child. We compared patterns (clusters) of EA on risk factors, including those for borderline personality disorder (BPD). We sampled 70 children aged 4 to 7 years from low socio‐economic backgrounds: 51% of whose mothers had BPD. We coded filmed interactions for EA: mothers' sensitivity, structuring, non‐intrusiveness, non‐hostility, and children's responsiveness to, and involvement of, mothers. We additionally coded children's over‐responsiveness and over‐involvement. Using person‐centred analyses, we identified four clusters: high functioning, low functioning, asynchronous (mothers above average on two of four dimensions and children below), and below average. Mothers in the low‐functioning cluster had lower income, less social support, more of the borderline feature of negative relationships, and more depression than did mothers in the high‐functioning cluster. The children in the low‐functioning group had more risk factors for BPD (physical abuse, neglect, and separation from, or loss of caregivers, and negative narrative representations of the mother–child relationship in their stories) than did children in the high‐functioning group. The asynchronous group included older girls who were over‐responsive and over‐involving with their mothers in an apparent role reversal. Interventions targeting emotional availability may provide a buffer for children facing cumulative risks and help prevent psychopathology.

Highlights

• This paper investigated how mother‐child emotional availability (warmth and closeness) relates to risk factors for borderline personality disorder, including mother‐child role reversal.
• In filmed mother‐child interactions, low emotional availability was associated with risk for borderline personality disorder and role reversal was more likely for older girls.
• Findings support the cumulative risk hypothesis and may inform interventions to improve mother‐child emotional availability to prevent the development of psychopathology.

     

Effects of error and errorless discrimination acquisition on reversal learning

The effectiveness of trial-and-error, graded-choice, and verbal-instruction procedures on the acquisition and maintenance of a two-choice simultaneous color discrimination in an intradimensional double-reversal learning situation was studied using 18 first-grade children. After acquiring a red-green discrimination during one 70-trial session, the discriminative roles of the stimuli were reversed for 30 trials, followed by a second reversal for 30 trials. Children in the graded-choice and verbal-instruction groups acquired and maintained the discriminations with fewer errors than children who learned by trial and error. The importance of the results in terms of two-stage discrimination learning theories is pointed out and similarities between errorless learning and overtraining are discussed.     

Context specificity of operant discriminative performance in pigeons: II. Necessary and sufficient conditions

Six experiments were performed to explore the necessary and sufficient conditions for producing context specificity of discriminative operant performance in pigeons. In Experiment 1, pigeons learned a successive discrimination (red S+/blue S−) in two chambers that had a particular odor present and between which they were frequently switched. The birds subsequently learned the reversal (blue S+/ red S−) in one of these chambers with a different odor present. When switched to the alternative chamber, although the odor and the reinforcement contingency were still appropriate to the reversal, performance appropriate to the original discrimination recurred in subjects for which the houselights were on during training and testing but not for those for which the houselights were off. This indicated the importance of visual contextual cues in producing context specificity. Experiment 2 showed that the frequent switching between boxes in initial training was of no consequence, presumably because the apparatus cues were highly salient to the subjects. Experiment 3 showed significantly less context specificity when odor cues were omitted. Experiment 4 showed that simply using a different reinforced stimulus in each phase of training was ineffective in producing context specificity. Experiment 5 showed that the generalization test procedure used in Experiment 4 was sensitive to context specificity when discrimination-reversal training was used with different odors in the two training phases. Experiment 6 replicated the results of Experiment 4, but then showed that when different odors accompanied the two training phases, context specificity was obtained with the single-stimulus paradigm. Thus in both single-stimulus and discrimination-reversal paradigms, redundant odor cues potentiated learning about apparatus cues.     

A BRIEF FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF AGGRESSIVE AND ALTERNATIVE BEHAVIOR IN AN OUTCLINIC SETTING

We conducted a brief functional analysis to identify maintaining variables for aggressive behavior and an alternative replacement response during a 90-min outpatient evaluation of 3 individuals with severe handicaps. During the initial analogue assessment, which focused on identifying maintaining contingencies for aggressive behavior, each participant displayed a substantially greater frequency of aggressive behavior during one condition than during any other. The contingency that produced the highest percentage of aggressive behavior was then presented for the occurrence of a specific alternative behavior (a mand). During this contingency reversal phase, each participant displayed a substantial reduction in aggressive behavior and a substantial increase in alternative behavior, thus providing a direct analysis of the equivalency of the contingency for maintaining either behavior.     

Substitutability between conditioned and primary reinforcers in discrimination acquisition.

Rats and pigeons were trained on a series of reversals of a conditional simultaneous discrimination. The percentage of reinforcement for correct trials was varied across reversals. When nonreinforced correct trials produced the same feedback as incorrect trials, the number of errors to reach an acquisition criterion was greater for smaller percentages of reinforcement, but the number of reinforcers required was either approximately constant or smaller for the smaller percentages. When a stimulus paired with food (the conditioned reinforcer) was added on nonreinforced correct trials, both measures were substantially decreased. When the same stimulus was presented, but without a history of food pairing, learning rate was similar to when no stimulus was presented on nonreinforced trials. The results provide direct evidence that conditioned reinforcers may substitute, although imperfectly, for a primary reinforcer, and that pairing with the primary reinforcer is a necessary condition for such substitutability to occur.     

Rank disagreement: A comparison of multi-criteria methodologies

A number of multi-criteria decision support techniques have emerged in recent years that use varying computational approaches to arrive at the most desirable solution and thereby ‘recommend’ a course of action. Decision makers who use the results of this analytic work should be assured that the computational schemes used by their supporting analysts or decision support software produce the appropriate solutions. We conducted a series of simulation experiments that compared the top-ranked options resulting from the computational algorithms that support Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT) and three methods that are reported in the literature that allow rank reversals, the change in rank order of two options when an unrelated option is added or deleted from the analysis: the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Percentaging and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). We also included a Fuzzy algorithm proposed by Yager to gauge its consistency with the other algorithms, even though it is not subject to rank reversals. These experiments demonstrated that the MAVT and AHP techniques, when provided with the same decision outcome data, very often identify the same alternative as ‘best’. The other techniques are noticeably less consistent with MAVT, the Fuzzy algorithm being the least consistent. The situations under which the most frequent and significant differences occurred were dependent upon the method. The results of our experiments indicate that other issues (e.g. the processes used for problem structuring and the elicitation of value weights) are likely to be of greater significance to problem outcome (based on our experience) than the choice between the computational algorithms of MAVT and AHP. The results cause us to be concerned about the use of the other methods.     

基于同义关联的句子错误记忆：发展性逆转现象及句式效应

以汉语把字句和被字句为材料,采用学习-再认方式,考察基于同义关联的句子错误记忆及其发展性逆转现象和句式效应。实验1结果发现高二和初二校正后的关键诱饵句错误再认率显著高于小学五年级,把字关键诱饵句校正后的错误再认率显著高于被字句,表明基于同义关联的句子错误记忆存在发展性逆转现象和句式效应。实验2结果发现三个年级关键诱饵句与无关句的错误再认率差异均不显著,表明去除同义关联后,句子错误记忆现象被抑制。结果表明,同义关联能诱发句子错误记忆,且句子错误记忆存在发展性逆转现象和句式效应。